Apollo's Sun
by AngelCeleste85
Summary: Erik muses on the way things have unfolded, shortly after Christine's betrayal on the rooftop.


Apollo's Sun by AngelCeleste85  
  
Disclaimer: Whatever it is, I didn't do it, I don't own it, please don't sue me!  
  
Author's Note: I'm ba-ack! Sorry about my long hiatus, I've not been able to get online much these days, so I do apologize for my hiatus. Heavy use of Greek mythology in this one, that's the only warning I have. Oh, and it's a very dark and somewhat twisted point of view. Not trying to stay within grammatical rules – these are basically the ramblings of a man driven nearly mad and frankly, he wouldn't care! :-)  
  
Also, I wanted to say thank you to those of you who have kept up the encouragement during my long absence! I officially dedicate this little one to you!  
  
This is another like "Silence," a quick snapshot story intended only to paint a portrait of a specific moment in time inside one person's mind. Of course, as you well now by now the most interesting character to study is, for me, Erik.  
  
Timeline is ALW/Leroux, place it where you want to. I originally had this written as timed in between the first and second acts (ALW), but upon revision I felt it makes more sense to place it after the story. As I said, wherever you want it.  
  
- AC  
  
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Apollo's Sun by AngelCeleste85  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
This was once my favorite place on earth.  
  
No, I do not mean the Opera Populaire, not specifically. I despise it. A prison that I built with my own hands, it is, and I grow weary of my own designs.  
  
Nor do I find joy in the people that fill it, Parisian haute culture speaking lightly of investments in this company or that, of the doings across the Channel and across the Atlantic, of the newest floral hybrids and the light, vicious gossip of each other's escapades and infidelities. It is too close to the nightmare I left behind me in Mazanderan all those years ago, or thought I left behind me. It saturates the corridors of my palace, the Opera Populaire: mindless, thoughtless, heartless, idle, petty prattle that echoes through my mind in a constant, slow drip like water on the lake, resonating relentlessly until even my music takes on its inane sameness and is no longer a haven for me – damn these acoustics!  
  
No! It is at such times, when I most fear insanity, that I go, leave my dark sanctuary, and dare to confront the illumination of the Sun on his own ground – the sky.  
  
The Sun.  
  
Apollo.  
  
My greatest friend.  
  
My sole release.  
  
My greatest enemy.  
  
This is one of those times that I must run – run! down the corridors of the Opera House, a noiseless shadow pursued by demons in his mind, run away from myself, from my sanctuary, in my weakness gaze upon the glowing face of my greatest enemy and so recover my strength.  
  
So now I stand, leaning over the edge of the balcony as I have since before dawn this morning, to watch the last rays of the Sun my Enemy sink below the horizon as he goes to the rest that is denied me. Hard, pitiless rays, like arrows. And Paris, haughty, overweening Paris, with her broad new boulevards and narrow, tortured alleys dating from her birth, is a twisted map of my twisted soul beneath me!  
  
It is indeed appropriate that I have chosen this city as my home. The rightness of it has been my comfort in times past.  
  
And yet...  
  
And yet... I find no solace this time.  
  
This place has new memories now. New voices ringing different words, more painful, more lethal, than the slander that assaults my senses in the world below. They disturb me.  
  
This place disturbs me.  
  
She disturbs me.  
  
My God, I knew it was folly, I knew that it could not last, that one day my mask would come off and she would see the truth!  
  
I knew, and I did not care!  
  
No, not true. I knew, and hoped that she could somehow see beyond. I knew she could never gain the maturity needed – my mother flung me from her breast the moment she first saw my face! Who could willingly love someone this hideous? And yet... I loved her. I still love her. And I tried to protect her from myself.  
  
Thus the deception that went so terribly wrong...  
  
Aphrodite, you are cruel to a man whom you cursed at birth, to toy with me in this fashion.  
  
I hear her now in my mind, that treacherous little Muse whom I taught to make true music and led in glory to those incompetents who believe themselves to be gods in this miniature Olympus –  
  
She betrayed me. Here, in this spot where I have stood all day, here! Here, is where Christine vowed her love to...  
  
My God, that cannot be the de Chagny fool now, calling that carriage...  
  
Speak of the devil, it is, and I know all too well the white skirts by his side.  
  
It all comes back to Apollo, doesn't it? Golden, sun-haired Apollo, perfect in body and mind. The ideal of what a man should be. What I can never be.  
  
She ducks her head into the carriage, and de Chagny follows quickly. The horses respond to a signal I cannot see from here, and bear them both away.  
  
I straighten, suddenly weary from my battle with a god, and turn my back to the red half-sphere that remains above the horizon.  
  
For once, you win.  
  
I will go now, descend into the depths of despair, in the long dark night that now descends upon me.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Fin  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Feed me? Please? I'm so starved for feedback, pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!  
  
-AC 


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